Europe's AI firms, playing catch — up, challenge US calls for slowdown

European officials and executives push back against US calls to slow the pace of AI development Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for an antitrust waiver to coordinate on safety measures French startup Mistral says US players are pushing for regulation favouring them By Florence Loeve, Elizabeth Howcroft and Hakan Ersen PARIS/FRANKFURT, Sept 18 (Reuters) — Europe's leading AI company Mistral and others have accused US rivals of using safety concerns to entrench their dominance, rejecting Anthropic's calls for advanced developers to slow down as Europe struggles to catch up. Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei in an online essay urged firms to slow the pace at which they improve AI model capabilities and called for an antitrust waiver allowing leading developers to jointly develop safety measures after researchers warned about the dangers of AI, including that it could wipe out humanity. While OpenAI's chief Sam Altman and xAI's Elon Musk also warned about the risks posed by increasingly powerful AI systems and agreed on the need to pace development, companies and officials in Europe have taken a more sceptical line. "Some incumbents are using this moment to consolidate their market positi